Billionaire Beny Steinmetz Sues Watchdog Global Witness

Billionaire
Beny Steinmetz
has filed a lawsuit against London-based nonprofit Global Witness in U.K. court, demanding the group disclose alleged personal data it has about him.

Mr. Steinmetz and three executives of BSG Resources Ltd., a mining firm that he founded registered in the English Channel islands of Guernsey, said Monday that Global Witness has refused to comply with requests they made for disclosure of the personal information under the U.K. Data Protection Act, which requires someone with data on an individual share it with that person.

"We don't know what the data is, where it came from or what it's being used for," said
Adam Rose,
a partner at Mischon de Reya, the law firm representing the BSG executives in their claim, in an interview. "We don't have a problem with their charitable activities, but they are not entitled to our [client's] personal data," he said.

Global Witness investigates and campaigns against what it considers as corruption in natural-resources sectors across the globe. The nonprofit has alleged in reports on its website, citing documents it obtained, that BSG Resources won a concession in 2008 to a vast iron-ore mine in Guinea through bribery.

BSG Resources denies any wrongdoing, saying Global Witness and others, including the Guinean government, are pursuing a smear campaign to strip the concession it rightfully won in 2008 from the prior government, led at the time by now-deceased dictator
Lansana Conte.

The company is under investigation in several countries over its Guinean operations, including the U.S., which is probing for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to court filings in the coming trial of a French man accused of obstructing the investigation. Earlier this year, BSG Resources confirmed it had engaged with the man,
Frédéric Cilins,
to help it get the Guinean business.

Mr. Cilins pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin March 31, 2014. BSG Resources has denied involvement in the matter involving Mr. Cilins, and has said its conduct in Guinea was appropriate.

The BSG executives say that the legal claim will allow them to argue the information "is being used to support the reiteration of false allegations of bribery and corruption" against the company.

They say after Global Witness refused to disclose the information following direct requests in December 2012 and July of this year, they sought redress from the U.K. information commissioner's office, which concluded that it was "unlikely that Global Witness had complied with the requirements of the Data Protection Act," the executives said.

Global Witness, according to the executives, still refused to comply with the data request, despite a recommendation from the information commissioner to do so. A confirmation from the commissioner's office wasn't immediately available.

The lawsuit is more complicated than a subject-access request made under the law: There is an exemption to that requirement if the data are being processed with an eye toward publishing them for journalistic purposes in the public interest.

That exemption forms the crux of the Global Witness's defense against the suit.

"Global Witness intends to robustly defend its position and regards the claim as an attempt to stifle journalism in the public interest," said
Daniel Balint-Kurti,
a spokesman, in an emailed statement. "Rather than seeking to bully those raising legitimate concerns, BSG should address these matters directly."

The BSG executives are also arguing for Global Witness to stop publicizing the data because it is causing personal distress, citing another section of the U.K. Data Protection Act, said
Richard Jones,
the director of data privacy at law firm Clifford Chance, which isn't involved in the case.

"It looks like [the suit] will turn on what the court thinks of the Global Witness argument that the public interest justifies the publication of this information, and if so, whether giving the claimants' access to the information would prevent that public interest from being fulfilled," he said. "It's never been tested in this context."

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